Over the past few years Enhanced Landfill Mining (ELFM) has gained considerable momentum. Firstly, three large-scale, multi-partner ELFM-related projects (ETN NEW-MINE, Interreg RAWFILL and COCOON) have received EU funding. Secondly, the ELFM concept has enjoyed widespread press attention, incl. multiple documentaries and featured articles, such as the January 8, 2018, Special Report in the “50 Ideas to Change the World” Series of the Financial Times. Thirdly, on March 14, 2017, the European Parliament formally endorsed the ELFM concept in its “waste package”, which was meant to guide the adaptation of four EU Directives, incl. the Landfill Directive.

Nevertheless, despite the many research breakthroughs, we are still waiting for the first, full-scale industrial, resource-recovery-driven ELFM project. Multiple barriers persist. Legislation on the EU and national level has not yet come to terms with the dynamics of the – disruptive – ELFM concept, which is corroborated by the fact the ELFM Amendment of the European Parliament was blocked out in the 2017 Trilateral meeting with the European Commission and the European Council. Concurrently, market barriers for ELFM remain: ELFM-derived products need to compete with primary resources. Thirdly, local communities may take some convincing about ELFM projects in their backyard. This bewildering force field provides the intriguing context for the Fourth International Symposium on Enhanced Landfill Mining (ELFM IV). Building upon the three previous editions (2010 & 2013 (Belgium) and 2016 (Portugal)), ELFM IV offers a total of 50 papers, grouped according to 4 thematic categories:

The wide diversity of participants reflects EURELCO’s “quadruple helix” approach, which is essential to obtain and maintain the “Social License to Operate”, in which ELFM is fully integrated in a wider, system-level transition to a low-carbon, circular economy.

Welcome to SIM² KU Leuven

SIM² KU Leuven is a leading, interdisciplinary research cluster at KU Leuven uniting the research groups working on Sustainable Inorganic Materials Management. SIM² KU Leuven’s mission is to develop, organise and implement problem-driven, science-deep research and future-oriented education, contributing to the environmentally friendly production and recycling of metals, minerals and engineered materials within a circular-economy context